


You Did Great, Minus the Dying Thing

by unholygrass



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Autistic Spencer Reid, BAMF Spencer Reid, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Drowning, Gen, Hurt Spencer Reid, Hurt/Comfort, Not Beta Read, Spencer Reid Whump, dramatic as shit, i had so much fun writing this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22580545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unholygrass/pseuds/unholygrass
Summary: Reid drowns in a river. Hotch tries not to let him die. Rossi and Morgan break some speed limits.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & Derek Morgan & Spencer Reid & David Rossi, Aaron Hotchner & Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan & Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid & David Rossi
Comments: 35
Kudos: 1207





	You Did Great, Minus the Dying Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I love writing self indulgent shit its fun okay what can I say. This was so fun.

“Wake up, Come on Spencer,” Hotch gasps, flinging his head up to get his hair out of his eyes. He throws his weight behind the compressions as he tries to force Reid’s heart to beat again. “Come on—“

They’re both soaked, their clothes heavy and drenched. The frigid air makes breathing hard— the air hurts and his lungs spasm against the cold. The shivering makes it hard to pump on Reid’s chest, but he never stops.

“Reid—“ Spencer’s ribs bend harshly under his palms, snapping back into place. He prays he doesn’t break them—knows he will.

“Wake up!” He shouts, the despair that’s coiled around him making him desperate. His fingers are numb where they’re locked together. He’s panting hard, sucking in air like he’s running. He feels faint—but if its from the heartache or the dip in the frozen river, he isn’t sure.

Reid’s face is gray, his lips tinted horribly purple. His eyes are dark and bruised, and blood spills from his hairline only to drip into the water on his face, making pink swirls that pool under his head. Each time Hotchner pumps on his chest it jostles his entire body, and Aaron wonders not for the first time if Reid has always been so thin. He’s taller than Hotch at 6’2” but can’t weigh more than 135 lbs. soaking wet— and Hotch would know, seeing as he just hauled him out of the river.

He reaches 35 compressions again and stops, tilting Reid’s head back and pinching his nose tightly— a feat made far more difficult by his numb fingers. He forces air into Reid’s lungs—he’s forgotten how many cycles he’s done—and starts the compressions again, misery beginning to completely infest his mind. He never forgot the statistic—that outside of hospitals, only 7% of CPR attempts are successful. Gideon had learned this the hard way, and now it seems Hotch is destined to learn as well.

Reid had been underwater for at least four minutes, if not more. There’s a good chance Hotch is trying to resuscitate a frozen corpse—

The overwhelming grief that wraps around his throat like iron is agony— it hurts— he can’t lose Reid, he can’t, he can’t, not their genius, not fucking Reid— not like this, not ever—

“Please, Reid—“ Something cracks under his hands, and his stomach flips painfully as his brain processes that he’s just broken Spencer’s ribs. Fuck— He can feel them shift under his weight, it’s bad— god—

But it’s not uncommon in CPR—If it brought him back—

Suddenly and violently, Reid bucks under his hands as he hacks up lungfuls of river water, choking on it.

Hotch moves on autopilot, shoving Reid onto his side quickly, keeping him from rolling onto his belly as he vomits up the water that had killed him. His entire body convulses, wracked by the exertion of it and already quaking violently from the cold. The vomiting turns to gagging, then to coughing, and Reid struggles to get his breath back, sucking in air desperately even as he chokes.

Hotch briefly finds himself dizzy with relief, kneeling in the frozen muck and keeping Spencer from suffocating in the mud, he finds himself thanking whatever entity that may exist for sparing this man. He hadn’t realized how bleak and miserable a world without Spencer Reid looked until he was staring it right in the face, and hearing his agent breathing, no matter how laboriously, feels like redemption.

In a rare moment of vulnerability, Hotch leans over where Reid tries to get his breath back and shields him from the cold, quickly kissing the side of Spencer’s head in relief. “You’re okay.” He says without thinking, his brain acting on its own. “It’s gonna be okay.”

He can actually hear the water in Reid’s lungs as he breaths, death rattles shaking inside him as he fights for air. It’s an awful, scary sound that makes alarm light up in Hotch’s brain—he’d been trained as a first responder during his academy days, and he knows that Reid is still in serious danger. The cold has weakened him, and already he’s gone limp again, the strength sapped out of him from the effort of coming back to life.

Hotch keeps his fingers pressed against Spencer’s carotid, taking reassurance in the erratic beating of his heart. It isn’t as strong as it should be, but it’s working, and Hotch will take it. He pats Reid’s face gently, trying to rouse him.

“Reid, can you hear me?” He thumbs open his eyes one by one, but Reid doesn’t react other than a faint furrowing of the brow. His skin is freezing and horribly bloodless. “Spencer?” Hotch tries, wrapping his hand under Reid’s neck and lifting his head some, he pushes Spencer’s sopping wet hair away from his face.

Reid winces hard before managing to pry his eyes open, staring ahead dazedly, blinking slowly. He still breathes laboriously, his lungs rejecting the air he tries to take in.

“Hey, you with me?” Hotch asks, leaning into Reid’s line of sight.

Reid blinks at him, eyes rolling a bit as he looks behind Hotch to take in his surroundings. His features pinch harshly in pain, on hand clumsily moving to his chest where it radiates from. He wheezes, the air getting caught in his throat, weakened muscles having a hard time. “...otch?”

“Yeah,” Hotch tells him, glancing up at the riverbank. They need to get help— even if Reid isn’t still in danger and in need of immediate medical attention, they are both soaked, and it can’t be warmer than 20 degrees— they are both at serious risk of hypothermia within the next hour if they don’t get warm.

“Where...” Reid wheezes, voice scratchy and warped. He gasps, hand flexing over his chest. Hotch winces in sympathy, knowing far too well that Reid is in significant pain from the CPR. Broken ribs are no small deal—they make up the core, and Hotch knows from personal experience that that means every single movement is accompanied by pain.

“Colorado,” Hotch reminds him, hoping to jog his memory. He won’t be surprised if Reid has trouble recalling anything in the moment— he is clearly out of it and still struggling to breathe. He’s responsive and conscious, but not very aware or coherent—not that Hotch was expecting him to be really, considering he’d just been forced to come back to life.

Reid’s brow furrows, but he doesn’t say anything else, and Hotch can tell that he’s not entire aware. His tongue pokes out of his mouth for a second to lick his lips, and it ‘s such a Reid like tick that Hotch feels some of the lingering panic in his chest dissipates.

His walkie-talkie chirps on the shore about five feet down, and then Morgan’s garbled voice pitches through the speakers. “Hotch! We’re five minutes out, over.”

Hotch glances to Spencer, double checking that he’s breathing and semi-aware before getting up and snatching it from the ground before returning.

“I got Reid— he’s alive, but we need EMS immediately.”

“Ambulance is still another half hour out— they’re too far. We’ll be there in four, and we’ll drive him in our self, or at least meet the ambulance.” Morgan tells him, and while it’s certainly not ideal, Hotch definitely isn’t waiting any longer than they have to.

Hotch looks across the bank, spying a massive neon sign sticking over the trees. “We’re on the shore right behind Omasha’s bar on the east side, get here as fast as you can.” Hotch tells them and then drops the walkie, trusting his agents to get to them and needing to put his full focus into keeping Reid conscious.

Hotch can tell just by looking at his agent that the cold is already settling into his bones. His shivering is only slowing down with each passing minute as his body loses energy. He’s turned his head enough to look up at the ravine, blinking slowly at the bright winter sky. He’s got hair plastered to the side of his face with freezing mud. They’re both absolutely filthy, covered in frigid muck and river water, and the blood from Reid’s fight still saturates his shirt and drips from his hair.

Hotch sits back on his heels for a moment while he gets his own breath back, glancing at their surroundings—when they’d arrived he’d been so focused on getting to his agent before he drowned that he hadn’t had a chance to really examine where they’d ended up. The river’s current wasn’t strong, but it had tugged Reid a couple dozen yards south.

Reid suddenly erupts into a violent cough, gasping for air as he chokes on residual water from drowning. The broken ribs make each movement debilitating, and Reid struggles to get oxygen through the terrible coughs, air punched from his lungs and stars dancing wildly in his vision.

There’s still water lingering in his lungs, and he can’t breathe on his back. Hotch doesn’t think, just leaps up and hooks his arms under Reid’s armpits and hauls him further up the shore where the ground is dryer. He kneels and keeps Reid vertical by holding him firmly against his chest, taking his weight so he can breathe—it works some. Reid manages to suck in a handful of deep breaths in between wheezes. He’s not strong enough to hold up his head and it drops back onto Hotch’s shoulder, his eyes falling closed.

It’s infinitely warmer once they’re fully out of the water and now they’re in a spot easier to see from the road.

Reid’s got blood smeared all over him, and therefor it’s smeared all over Hotch as well, though in considerably less quantities. There’re areas where it’s obvious that their unsub’s knife had caught Reid— defensive wounds slashed up his forearms and cuts sliced into his shirt from the few lucky jabs the unsub had managed. Reid had thrown up his arms to save his throat and chest, but he’s still got a nasty cut on the side of his face and across his shoulder, and one bloody mess across his belly. They’re deep cuts, but not life threatening. Reid had defended himself well, and while the blood makes Hotch’s skin prickle he can’t squash the pride at how well Reid had handled himself against a monster of a man like Dennis Bowman.

Reid is tall but thin, and terribly gangly— and Hotch knows that he struggles with coordination and some of the more physical aspects of their job— but when it came down to it, Reid had fought like hell and had been able to use enough of Morgan’s combat training to stay alive even against a 250lbs man with a kitchen knife determined to slit his throat.

Reid had stood his ground and though they’d both wound up in the water, Hotch would take the accidental drowning over disembowelment. The only reason Reid hadn’t been able to swim to shore himself was because he’d bashed his head against a stone on the way down and efficiently rendered himself unconscious.

All things considered; everything could be infinitely worse—Aaron could be holding a bloodied corpse; a shell left of the man he’d come to love as family.

Hotch shivers hard, the cold finally getting to him.

He could have lost him.

He could have lost Reid—

Fuck.

He subconsciously tightens his hold on the man, squeezing him closer and appreciative of the feeble heat Reid still puts off.

“...otch?” Reid wheezes softly, hand twitching to his chest. Aaron rubs his hand up and down Reid’s uninjured arm to try to warm him some.

“We’re going to get you out of here.” Hotch promises, giving him a little squeeze. “Hang in there.” Reid’s head lolls forward and falls into the crook of Hotch’s neck, his nose poking him in the throat. While a little uncomfortable, it’s reassuring to feel his breath— it’s a constant reminder that while in danger, he is still alive and fighting.

“...owman?” Reid wheezes, and it takes Hotch a moment to understand what he said over the sound of the wind.

“Bowman’s dead. I shot him.”

“Mhm.”

Hotch isn’t sure if that’s a good reaction or not, but it doesn’t matter because a moment later and he hears a car screech to a stop on the road twenty feet up the ravine. Two car doors slam shut, and voices carry down to them.

“Down here!” He yells, and a moment later Morgan and Rossi pop over the hill. Reid twitches in his arms, tilting his head back to look but settles in Hotch’s arms again after a moment, his wet hair tickling the bottom of Hotch’s chin.

Morgan and Rossi come down the hill quickly, navigating the undergrowth and stumbling a couple times as they jog down the steep slope to them.

“Jesus,” Rossi says when he sees them both filthy, soaked, and partially covered in blood.

Morgan reaches them first, squatting down and stripping off his heavy coat. He wraps it around Reid’s shoulders—putting it on him backwards. “What the hell happened man?” He asks, fury leaking into his tone. They had learned a long time ago that Morgan took any threats against Reid personally—and dealt with them accordingly.

Reid manages to weakly wave a hand in Dave’s general direction—it’s an affirmation that he knows they are there. “We need to go, now.” Hotch says, already shifting to stand. “Did you park close?”

“Yeah, as close as we could without getting stuck.” Rossi tells them. He grabs Hotch’s walkie-talkie and gun, looking around in the undergrowth for Reid’s but not finding it.

Reid lets out a wet gasp, startling them all. The heels of his converse dig into the mud, one hand weakly grasping at Hotch’s dress shirt and the other curling against his chest. His face pinches harshly in pain, all the air rushing out of him as the gasps shift his ribs. His muscles seize and he shakes hard, eyes squeezing tightly shut and jaw clenching as he tries to breathe.

Hotch rubs his hand up and down Spencer’s arm and shoulder, shielding him further from the biting wind and keeping him from collapsing forward into the mud. Rossi briefly bends down and swipes aside the wet fringe of hair clinging to Reid’s brow. “We’ve got to get him outta here. You’re both turning to ice.”

“Let’s go.” Morgan glances at the hill and back down at them. “We can carry him.”

Together he and Hotch move as one, slinging Reid’s arms over their shoulders and moving carefully. They coax Reid to relax from his scrunched position to get him up. He does as he’s told without much comment, but Hotch suspects that’s only because he doesn’t have the air to sass them.

“Careful— his ribs are broken and he’s cut up pretty bad.” Aaron manipulates Derek’s jacket across Reid’s shoulders before they steadily rise from the ground, bringing Spencer up with them. Rossi picks out an easy path where they won’t trip over roots and foliage and pulls aside tree branches that are in their way as they climb out of the ravine.

“Damn, he’s freezing—“ Morgan curses, no doubt feeling the freezing river water soak through his shirt. Hotch only nods, certainly feeling the cold himself.

The climb leaves them breathless, the steep slope trying to send them tumbling back down to the shore. Spencer is silent except for the occasional gasp when jostled too hard—he breathes very shallowly, holding his breath without meaning to when the pain overwhelms him.

Morgan’s foot slips in the slick mud, and while he catches himself quickly it still jerks them to a halt. Reid groans, a sharp “ _Shit…”_ escaping him when Hotch braces him from the fall. He’s partially hunched over, subconsciously shielding himself even when both of his arms are unavailable.

“Sorry—” Morgan says, and Reid makes a soft noise of acknowledgement, obviously not focusing on his friend.

“Reid, breathe.” Hotch reminds him as they continue on up the hill. He has to say it again before his agent takes the advice and sucks in a thin gasp of air, hanging onto it and slowly letting it out.

Thankfully they reach the car only a couple minutes later. “What the hell happened?” Rossi repeats Morgan’s question, opening the backdoor to the SUV. Heat blasts Hotch in the face when he climbs in, and it’s such a stark contrast to the biting wind that it almost knocks him silly. He takes Reid from Morgan by hooking his arms under Reid’s shoulders again and pulling him across the backseat when it’s obvious Reid doesn’t have the strength to assist them.

“I’ll tell you later. Get Blankets— There’s some in the survival kit—“

“Got it.” Rossi’s already grabbed them, tossing them in to Hotch who quickly spreads them out across Spencer while Derek wraps one around Reid’s shoulders. “We gotta go.”

Rossi climbs in to drive while Morgan closes the door, and Hotch takes a moment to shuffle around in the seat, pulling Spencer closer as he does. As much as he’d like to pretend that he is holding him so closely for Reid’s sake and not his own, it would be dumb not to admit that the cold is really starting to get to him. He’d done a good job of ignoring how his own body shakes and shivers in the wind, but now that they are in the heated car, he is really feeling how the chill has cut down to his bone.

While Spencer is definitely the more frozen of them two of them, he still puts off a little bit of heat, and Hotch isn’t afraid to tuck his cheek against the top of Reid’s head, wrapping both arms around him while Rossi pulls them quickly onto the highway.

It’s far more close contact than Hotch prefers, and he knows for a fact that if Reid were coherent that he’d be a blushing mess, but the situation calls for some abnormal cuddling, so whatever. He reaches down and readjusts the layers of blankets covering them, tucking them securely around his agent. If holding Reid meant he would live, then Hotch could certainly handle a little extra sentimentality and teasing from the others.

“What happened to Bowman?” Derek asks, flipping on the sirens as they scream down the highway. He adjusts the heat controls so that all the vents point to the backseat.

“He’s dead— body’s in the river.” Hotch realizes belatedly that he should have left Morgan or Rossi at the scene to secure it— but he hadn’t been thinking of it at the time, and they were already on their way now. “Call sheriff Riley and have him send his uniforms out to the scene— his RV is on the other side of the river,” His own voice has begun to shake as the cold gets to him, and he relishes in the heat blasting him in the face.

“He attacked you?” Rossi asks as Morgan pulls out his phone to call the station.

“Attacked Reid.” Hotch corrects him. “He was hiding. We cleared his RV and the storage shed, and started profiling the place, but he was up in one of the trees waiting. Knocked Reid into that Koi pond— so his gun was wet.”

“How bad?” Rossi asks, glancing back at them, no doubt seeing the blood that had soaked through the blankets in a couple places.

“Only superficial— he’ll need stitches, but he’s only got defensive wounds. I’m more worried about the cold and the drowning.”

“Damn.” Rossi throws them another look before focusing on the road again. He pushes the SUV to 90 mph.

Reid’s lips are somehow even bluer than earlier, and Hotch feels his stomach clench. He had managed to save Reid’s life from the river, but the cold is still determined to kill him.

He’s known Reid since he was 21, a hesitant genius with half the world’s knowledge in his head and no idea where he wanted to put it. He’d watched Reid grow from an awkward college student to one of the most incredible FBI agents Hotch has ever known and had the honor of working with. Reid is a part of his family— he came to new year’s, jack’s soccer games, they celebrated birthdays and commemorations together— he spent more time with Reid and the rest of the team than he did with his own family— ate more meals with them, traveled more with them, talked more with them.

losing his family, losing Reid—

Hotch stops thinking about it, because it makes him feel out of control in the most sickening way. Instead he uses one hand to rest on Spencer’s jaw, keeping track of his weak heart, taking solace in each beat he feels as they scream down the highway. The sirens are jarring and make everyone’s blood pump faster, and Hotch is no exception.

He decides Reid is going to make it, because he has to.

  
\------

They arrive at the hospital in a flurry of squealing tires and burning rubber. Rossi throws the car into park while Morgan practically flies out of the car, opening the backdoor on Reid’s side.

Hotch braces himself to move again, shifting to where he can get a good grip on the gangly agent in his lap.

Several nurses come out of the emergency bay doors, pushing along a stretcher with them and moving briskly. Derek had had the good sense to call them while they’d been on their way to pick up Reid and Hotch, so they’re there waiting for them, already informed of the situation and prepared a bay to work in.

Reid lets out another startling cough in Hotch’s arms, drawing his attention immediately. The drowning, river water, and expulsion had shredded his lungs and trachea, and the water still trapped in his chest won’t let him rest for more than a moment. He doesn’t have the strength to do anything other than try not to suffocate.

The weak gasping for air sends both Morgan and Hotch into a flurry of movement— Derek reaches into the car and wraps an arm around Reid’s back and under his knees, pulling him out in one easy movement and jogging to meet the nurses with the younger agent against his chest. They drop the bars for him, but Reid is light and Morgan has no problem quickly depositing him onto the padded stretcher.

There’s only a moment to keep up, because once they have him in their possession the nurses take off, tossing out vitals to each other and moving fast. Reid gasps the entire time, lungs spasming against the liquid still residing there. His face is a frightening shade of blue, and his lips are tinted dark along with his fingers. He moves without meaning, his body trying to curl up on the stretcher in pain. 

Morgan follows them, managing to grab a free spot on the bar, and since he doesn’t slow them down the nurses allow him to come along. They work quickly, concerned about his low oxygen levels and even lower body temperature. Derek knows that he won’t be allowed to follow them back into the critical care bay, knows someone’s going to stop him— and yet when it happens he still struggles to let go of the stretcher, and somehow it’s even worse than he was expecting. 

He gets one last glance of their boy— blue and struggling for air— before they all disappear, and he’s left alone in the chaos of the ER.

——

…

…

He doesn’t feel much, which is perfectly okay, because he’s vaguely aware that he’s only semiconscious, and that’s alright too.

…

Drugs… It’s probably drugs…

…

In his body…

But that’s okay too…

…

In fact, it’s so perfectly okay that he surrenders himself back to sleep, because it’s certainly calling his name.

…

But his body is doing its job of… registering sensation… so it takes a moment.

…

He smells sharp disinfectants and latex—medicine… no, hospital…

…

That’s good. That means at least someone is monitoring the drugs.

…

He also smells… cigar smoke?

And…

… Rossi’s cologne.

…

He feels warm. It’s good.

He certainly doesn’t bother trying to open his eyes, because he’s still planning on slipping peacefully back into unconsciousness, but he thinks he manages to roll his head to the side where the smell is coming from.

…

He registers a change in noise—he hadn’t even realized he was hearing anything in the first place…

…

Then…

“Go back to sleep kiddo. Everything’s fine.”

…

Everything’s fine…

…

That’s good…

…

So good in fact, that he happily does as he’s been told.

\-------

“Well good morning.” Hotch says dryly, watching as Spencer presses his palms into his eye sockets, trying to rub away the sticky feeling over his eyes. The IV in the back of his hand catches on his dry lips and he blinks slowly, dropping his hands and examining the room. Hotch watches him orient himself— gives him a moment to let his brain catch up with the situation. 

“Hi.” Reid says after another moment, his voice scratchy. He makes a face, running his tongue over his teeth unhappily. Hotch stands and goes to the small counter next to the room’s sink and grabs the plastic pitcher of ice water there. He has a vivid memory of waking up after Foyet’s attack— and how much he’d longed to brush his teeth right away. 

He can’t offer that, but he does offer Reid a cup of water to wash away the taste of the river. Reid accepts it gratefully and downs the entire thing. He looks a little more awake after, wiggling on the bed and scratching idly at his stomach. He has to reach up and untangle his IV line from its pole, tugging on the tube a bit. 

Hotch reaches over and frees it for him. “How are you feeling?” 

“Not bad.” Reid admits, hand going to rest on his chest— ”Better than I think is warranted.” 

“They have you on a nerve blocker and ketamine. It’s a controlled dose. You don’t need to worry about that right now.” The tension in Reid’s body releases, and he settles back into the pillows again, content after hearing he isn’t on opioids. 

“Is that why I’m so itchy?” He asks, eyes drooping some. 

“No, you’re itchy because you have stitches that are healing.” Hotch says as he sits back in the recliner again. 

Reid hums and glances over the room again, his eyes landing on the line of bouquets in the windowsill. “Oh.” He says.

“Oh?” Hotch asks, smiling a tad. 

“That’s nice.” Reid finishes. Hotch isn’t sure if he’s imagining the blush on his cheeks or not. 

A moment later and Reid’s focus is back on him once more, bright eyes meeting Hotch’s. Reid doesn’t like eye contact, Hotch is very aware of this, so it still catches him off guard sometimes when Reid pins him down with his eyes like that, even drugged and a little flustered. 

“Thanks for finding me.” He says softly. 

Aaron hadn’t been sure about how much he’d remember after the drowning— he’d been thoroughly out of it at the time, slowly freezing to death and bleeding all over everyone. 

But apparently he remembers that much. 

“You’re welcome.” He says genuinely. After a second he leans forward. “But don’t ever do anything like that again.” HIs voice is firm, and Reid blinks. 

“What, drown?” 

“Yes.” Hotch says seriously. 

Sure enough, it gets the reaction he’d been hoping for. Reid rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile in the corner of his lips, and it’s infectious. He looks away as he sits back to save some of his pride as he grins. He finds himself smiling less and less these days, but in the moment, relishing in the miracle in front of him, he finds it comes easily.

**Author's Note:**

> Please Review!


End file.
